“I hear America singing,” Walt Whitman wrote, summoning the “varied carols” of carpenter, mason, shoemaker and wife.
That melody came through clear and sweet as Americans acquitted themselves superbly in the heartbreaking hours before the Social Democrats inevitably bulldozed the will of the people and imposed ObamaCare.
Many marched, chanted and shouted. Others jammed congressional switchboards, composed letters to the editor or contributed to political candidates who vow to seek ObamaCare’s repeal if elected.
The minority refused to hear, but the majority wouldn’t be shushed.
Some dissenters were affiliated with the tea party, a movement whose very nobility explains the savagery of the slanders against it. Most were just folks who remember that two plus two equals four and who don’t want to abandon reality simply because the president finds math inconvenient.
But all understood that they were fighting “reforms” rooted in budget gimmicks, bribes, wealth redistribution and a dump truck load of falsehoods.
Whether they won this battle is (almost) secondary. ObamaCare or no ObamaCare, resistance to overreaching government has reasserted itself in ways that quite properly alarm those who seek to order our lives according to priorities sharply at odds with our interests. Congress and the president have whacked a slumbering grizzly with a two-by-four, and it’s not about to roll back over for a nap.
Nearly 40 states – the chief repositories of power under our Constitution, second only to the people – have adopted or proposed measures condemning the most pernicious aspects of the law. And in an unintended homage to the original colonies, 13 states have sued to stop the takeover in its tracks.
Critics in Congress who nervously mock those efforts as mere theater do so at their political peril. If Gov. Bredesen – no Goldwater Republican, he – repeatedly denounces the 2,000-plus-page legislation as “the mother of all unfunded mandates,” one may safely dismiss claims that the bill’s transgressions are all GOP-hatched myths.
The congressional bullies-o’-the-block shin-kicked the American people and once again thought they could prance away laughing. But the runny-nosed offenders underestimated their target, as runny-nosed offenders will tend to do. Now the public, which they viewed as little more than a slow-witted ATM, has snagged them by the collar, and it’s not letting go.
The Democrats will do a lot of fast talking over the next seven months. They’ll meet with consultants, convene focus groups and check to be sure the media have their backs when they tell whopper after whopper about the manifold blessings of ObamaCare. They assume those strategies will provide the requisite insulation from voter outrage.
They are wrong.
America is singing again, and freedom is getting ready to ring.
Nov. 2 is going to arrive with the force of a 40 million-ton asteroid.
Just say no
Honorable Chattanooga City Councilwoman Sally Robinson:
As you are aware, the council is considering a proposal to offer Police Chief Freeman Cooper a three-year contract to stay on after his pending retirement.
The proposal would let Chief Cooper continue getting his roughly $117,000 annual salary. It would simultaneously let him draw on his retirement to the tune of $80,000 per year, and take a lump-sum retirement bonus of about $174,000 – all while he is not “retired” in any ordinary sense of the word. One councilman, Jack Benson, calls this “double-dipping.” Whatever it is, it would have Chief Cooper getting nearly $400,000 next year alone.
Your opinion on the subject is crucial, because in your absence last Tuesday, the council halted the move only by a tie vote, and opponents’ efforts to strike a reasonable compromise have, as of this writing, been blocked.
I hope this Tuesday you will add to the no votes provided by Mr. Benson, Russell Gilbert, Andraé McGary and Peter Murphy. That should in no way be seen as a negative reflection on Chief Cooper, but it would show sensitivity to taxpayers in a time of recession.
Respectfully,
Steve Barrett
To reach Steve Barrett, call 423-757-6329 or e-mail sbarrett@timesfreepress.com.